A series of biblical readings and prayers from David L. Miller, senior pastor of St. Timothy Lutheran Church, Naperville, IL. David is the former editor of The Lutheran magazine and Director of Spiritual Formation at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

Saturday, December 06, 2014

Mark 1:1-3

The beginning of the gospel about
Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is written in the prophet
Isaiah: Look, I am going to send my messenger in front of you to prepare your
way before you. A voice of one that cries in the desert: Prepare
a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.

Prepare Love’s way

What is the Lord’s way, if not that of Love that transforms
the heart and sets us free?

We make the path straight by releasing all that blocks the
flow of Love between God and ourselves … and between us and others. Sin is all
that blocks the flow of self-giving Love that pours from the depth of God’s
heart.

We are made to bask and revel, to know …sweetest communion,
heart-to-heart, with the One Love who made us, the One who is the Heart of our
hearts.

It is this communion that fulfills the human heart. All that
stops the flow of grace and goodness is to be cleared away … as much as this is
in our power.

Make straight the Lord’s paths. Remove the obstacles to
knowing and reveling in the Love, the Life that flows from deepest mystery to
the mystery of our hearts.

These obstacles are as diverse and manifold as the human
race itself. What keeps us from receiving and giving, from knowing and sharing the
Love of Holy One as it flows from secret depths of eternity?

Perhaps we are too busy to pray or even to feel what is in
our hearts and offer it to God.

Perhaps we fail to see and return to the sacraments of God’s
life in our lives, the people and places, the practices and moments that make
us truly alive and filled … with the Love which completes us.

Make straight God’s paths. Prepare his way. Remove the
negative thoughts that shut down the flow of love in you. Dwell no longer on
the disappointments and resentments that sour the heart and turn it from love. Release
the festering wounds at which you pick. Let go of the threatened ego’s need to win
and be considered important.

Turn your eyes to the Love who seeks you in every love,
every grace and beauty. Run to the places where you know … the Love who comes
to make you alive. Go there, and let it draw you into its gravity.

Your heart will open like a flower. Joy will so fill you that
you can barely speak. Expectation and unfailing hope will open your eyes to the
Love who is, the Love who comes to you again and again … because that’s the way
Love is.

Friday, December 05, 2014

Mark 1:1,7

The beginning of the good news of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God. …[John the Baptist] proclaimed the one who is more powerful that I is coming
after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals

Kissing the feet

I wonder if you are truly a human being until you have been
so moved that you are eager to bend down and kiss someone’s feet.

This may seem a strange thought, hopelessly out of date. But
you don’t really know what is in your heart until you love, admire and even
adore someone so much that this act of humility and affection seems natural as
breathing, something your heart is eager to do.

Mothers kiss their children’s feet all the time in complete
affection and care, an acknowledgement that their heart totally belongs to
their little one. They would do anything for them.

In ancient times, taking off someone’s sandals and washing
of kissing their feet was an act of abject humility, something slaves would be
ordered to do.

But for mothers and John the Baptist … and for those who
have been moved to deep love … this is an act of joy. It expresses the heart’s
desire to be given away in love and service to the one they kiss.

We become completely human, truly human souls, when the
heart is moved to this place of giving and humility, when a slave’s act is a joyous
expression of a love that cannot be denied.

Jesus comes. He appears and awakens this kind of love in the
John’s heart. It is the beginning of the good news.

Jesus is the good news who moves us beyond our hang-ups and
all that hems in our hearts to kiss the feet of the Love who comes to set us
free.

Monday, December 01, 2014

Isaiah 40:9

Get you up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good tidings;
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,
lift it up, do not fear;
say to the cities of Judah,
‘Here is your God!’